XI. SIRE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The American Dairy Goat Association Sire Development Program (ADGA-SDP) will identify potential genetically superior sires as young as possible at the time of their registration. It is then up to their owners to progeny test bucks by getting daughters in as many herds as possible. Fifteen daughters in 15 herds is a good number to try to attain. This represents about 30% repeatability, which provides a fairly accurate evaluation of a young buck.

The daughters should be bred to freshen as yearlings to generate data on their sires as soon as possible. The herds containing these daughters should be enrolled in the DHI production testing program and participate in the ADGA type appraisal program. Genetic data generated by these programs is the only basis for the sire*s proofs on the USDA sire summaries for production and type. Data from private evaluations for type does not go to the USDA for research and genetic evaluations and does not contribute to the evaluation of the young bucks for the ADGA- SDP.

The sires are evaluated for production and type from their daughter averages appearing in the USDA sire summaries. This should all occur by the time the buck is three years old. If the sire has Predicted Differences (PD) in the upper percentiles with reasonable repeatability, he should be used heavily. All bucks will be screened at the time of registration to determine if they qualify for the ADGA-SDP.

Older bucks that are already registered and without sire summaries, may be evaluated upon request and the payment of the appropriate fee to cover the cost of the performance pedigree. Qualification for the ADGA-SDP will be on the basis of an ETA (estimated transmitted ability) calculated from the Production- Type Indexes of his sire and dam. The formula is: The ETA on the Productions-Type Index (PTI) equals one-half the PTI of the sire plus one-half the PTI of the dam.

Two ETAs on each buck will be calculated. One PTI will emphasize production to type in a 2:1 ratio. The other PTI will emphasize production to type in a 1:2 ratio. In other words, they are just reversed.

Production traits will be expressed in terms of Fat corrected Milk, to be corrected to each breed's average fat percent as follows: Alpine, 3.5 percent; LaMancha, 3.8 percent; Nubian, 4.5 percent; Saanen, 3.4 percent; Toggenburg, 3.3 percent; and Oberhasli, 3.7 percent.

Qualification levels for the ETAs will be determined by the Sire Development Committee following further research by the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory of the USDA. Selection criteria will be set to ensure that the bucks that qualify have a sufficiently high probability of being genetically superior without restricting the number of qualifying bucks and without having an adverse effect on genetic diversity or breeder participation. We will inform the industry about bucks who have qualified for the ADGA-SDP in two ways:

• 1. inform the owner by letter and
• 2. publish a list of qualifying bucks periodically